Despite the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, some Major League Baseball teams demonstrated they are still committed to spending whatever it takes to potentially win a World Series.
Two of those clubs play in the National League West as both the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres made significant roster upgrades during the offseason, handing out the money it takes to do so.
The Dodgers brought in one of the best starting pitchers in baseball in Trevor Bauer, while the Padres added starters Yu Darvish and Blake Snell, and also signed face of the franchise Fernando Tatis Jr. to a contract extension.
Even though Tatis is only 22 and hadn’t even reached arbitration eligibility, the Padres locked him in on a 14-year, $340 million contract, which is the third-largest in MLB history behind Mike Trout and Mookie Betts.
After Tatis linked the deal, many took to social media to compliment his agent, Dan Lozano of MVP Sports Group, for making it happen.
That sparked a rant from Bauer of social media in which he questioned the typical payment plan for agents, who usually receive 5% of the contracts they negotiate for their clients. Bauer used it as an opportunity to promoted the services of his agent, Rachel Luba of Luba Sports, whose model of an hourly rate saves players a lot of money.
Really makes you think…what if you just paid your agent for the time they spent working for you and kept a lot more of the money you earned on the field? If only that model existed…🤔 oh wait… @Luba_Sports https://t.co/zb5KZEOPgU
— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) (@BauerOutage) February 18, 2021
$340M over 14 years. Let’s do some math. Say a lawyer charges $500/hr. 5% of 24M is 1.2M, or 2400 hours of the lawyer’s time. Every year. Are 2400 hours of work being done on the player’s behalf every year for the next 14 years? Reality is worse though. The lawyer isn’t doing all
— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) (@BauerOutage) February 18, 2021
Those hours of work. Let’s say the lawyer worked 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 4 months in contract negotiations. That’s $630,000. That leaves $570,000 left over. At an average salary of $75,000, you could hire 7 full time employees to work for you. If each employee worked
— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) (@BauerOutage) February 18, 2021
2000 hours a year, that’s 14,000 hours, plus the 1260 hours your lawyer spent. And that time is spent solely on you. So that would be 15,260 hours worked on your behalf for a total of 1.155M…STILL less than 5% of your contract. Now what about year 2? No contract to negotiate so
— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) (@BauerOutage) February 18, 2021
Let’s say your lawyer works 200 hours on your behalf each year moving forward. That’s $100,000, leaving 1.1M left over. At 75k per year for an employee, that’s 14 full time employees at 2000 hours each, so 28,000 hours spent on you in years 2-14. Total hours spent on you over the
— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) (@BauerOutage) February 18, 2021
Life of the contract would then = 381,860. Total $ paid would = $16,105,000. STILL LESS THAN 5%! Is any agency out there even capable of spending 381,860 hours on any specific player over the next 14 years? That’s a NO. A big NO. Now, you may say that an experienced agent could
— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) (@BauerOutage) February 18, 2021
Get you a larger contract, so it’s worth the 5%. That’s what the gossip blogger who wrote this article seemed to think. BUT…if that were really true…how do you explain the second picture? 🤔🤔 BOTTOM LINE: @Luba_Sports provides a better model. @AgentRachelLuba pic.twitter.com/6vg5uYuOlt
— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) (@BauerOutage) February 18, 2021
Luba’s clients include Bauer and former Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig, and she continues to break through into the business as a young agent.
She did a nice job negotiating her first big contract as Bauer will be the highest-paid player in baseball history at $40 million in 2021 and $45 million in 2022 under his new deal with the Dodgers.
While Bauer’s math may be hard for many to understand, there is no doubt that Luba’s model saved him money, so it will be interesting to see how many players jump on board to her growing agency in the future.
Bauer expresses excitement to play for Dodgers
After inking his contract with the Dodgers, Bauer expressed excitement to be playing for the team he grew up rooting for. He also stated that a big reason for his decision was an opportunity to win a World Series, so Luba deserves a ton of credit for putting him in the exact situation that he was looking for in free agency.
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